


while it's light out, while it's early

by colazitron



Series: 2017 December Holiday Fic Countdown [20]
Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Break Up, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 16:46:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13081047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colazitron/pseuds/colazitron
Summary: Connor listens to Troye perform "Lost Boy" and has a realisation.





	while it's light out, while it's early

**Author's Note:**

  * For [smallbump](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smallbump/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** I am in no affiliated with the people depicted herein, nor is this meant to represent reality in any meaningful way. Please mind the fourth wall.

Connor has had a bad feeling about this trip ever since he booked it.

Well, truth be told, Connor has had a bad feeling ever since… well, he's not sure really. It's like things were fine and dandy and sunshine and roses one moment and then the next this heavy, apprehensive feeling snuck into his gut and now whenever he sees or talks to or kisses or even just thinks about Troye, it's there. Right in the middle of his mind. This “uh oh” that he can't quite get rid of.

Well. Not whenever, really. Often enough he forgets it. Most of the conversations he has with Troye soothe it and most of the kisses they share are still as sweet as ever. But then it ends and once Connor is alone or even sometimes just as soon Troye turns to talk to someone else or has to hang up the call Connor wants to shout at him to not go, to stay here, to look at Connor.

That can't be good.

But Troye comes to pick him up from the airport, waits in a car with blacked out windows and beams at Connor as soon as he crawls in to join him in the backseat, winds his arms around Connor's neck and giggles happily into the kiss hello. Connor's always liked these kisses best – the ones that start with them smiling and end because they're smiling too much. There's nothing in Connor's gut except butterflies, and the way Troye looks at him when they finally pull apart makes him smile so much his cheeks hurt.

“I've missed you,” Troye says, one hand resting on Connor's cheek oh so gently, as if he's afraid a too firm touch might make Connor pop like a soap bubble. Yet his voice is heavy with a kind of intensity that makes Connor reach for his hand and hold on like it's a lifeline.

“I've missed you too,” he answers.

They spend the whole day in a little bubble. Troye takes him up onto the rooftop terrace restaurant of the hotel to have lunch on their own little corner, shielded from view by some strategic bamboo plants that Troye probably had moved for their sake. They take a little stroll through a nearby park with their hands comfortably tangled. Troye kisses him breathless on the elevator ride up to their room where Connor wants to get changed, so that gets derailed into a frantic, heated makeout session on the bed that ends with both of them panting and giggling from their orgasms.

Troye's only barely not late for soundcheck, but he's beaming and energetic, and no one seems to mind at all. Connor finds a place somewhere up on the balcony where he won't be in the way and gets out his tablet to get some brainstorming work done for some new Common Culture things. They don't get much time together before it's time for Troye to perform, but it's fine. Connor's been to enough of Troye's shows to know how the whole thing goes down and just moves into Troye's dressing room when they start letting people in so he can sneak into the wings later.

Watching Troye on stage is, like always, amazing. Connor can't help but think that this is what he's meant to do, Troye. To be up on stage and sing and dance and entertain and heal. Connor's seen a lot of live music, and while there's things that Troye can still learn to be better a, from a technical standpoint, there's an energy in the audience at every single show Connor's been to that's simply electric.

Still.

The longer Connor stands there and watches Troye, the more that weight in his gut that's been completely absent all day, comes back. He's been floating on the way Troye looked at him, and smiled at him, and kissed him all day. And now it's like every beat, every note drags him back down to Earth and then some.

It's during the intro to Lost Boy that the “uh oh” suddenly turns into “oh no”, the uncertainty in Connor's belly turning frantic and wild, and when Troye's voice breaks on the first line he knows.

This is it. Here is where they end.

He can tell Troye is purposely keeping away from where he knows Connor is standing in the wings, favours the other side of the stage too much to be professional, but it somehow only makes it worse. For Connor at least. They've not even said the words yet –

“ _I'm just a lost boy, not ready to be found.”_

– and they're already –

Connor's cheeks are wet, and he can't watch the end of this, suddenly remembers there's crew all around him and they can probably tell what's happening. He doesn't want to watch this, he doesn't want to be here.

But he finds he's rooted to the spot, can't tear his eyes away from where Troye is still shining more brightly than the stage lights, his voice loud and clear, if heavy with emotion. Maybe Connor is the only one who can hear it. Maybe it's just because even if Troye won't look at him Connor knows this song is his song now. Always was, but now Troye's made up his mind for the final time.

So this is what heartbreak feels like.

When the last note rings out, Connor turns and walks back to the dressing room mechanically. Everything here looks and smells and feels like Troye. The air practically tastes like him, and Connor means to pull out his phone and book a red-eye back to LA, but instead he puts his face in his hands and cries.

He'll listen to Troye's apologies and he'll give his own, he'll be an adult and not try to hurt Troye back, because this isn't his fault, not really, and then he'll leave.

But for now, he cries.

He cries until his cheeks are sticky and his head hurts and his heart feels like a burning, gaping wound in his chest and then, when he's just on that precipice of being unable to stop he has a moment of clarity and stops. Gets up and wipes his face. Grabs one of Troye's bottles of water, and books that flight.

  


**The End**


End file.
